


Malfunction Junction

by Hotel_Denouement



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, possibly enemies to friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 06:34:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11030631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotel_Denouement/pseuds/Hotel_Denouement
Summary: Zim and Dib share more adventures than they are entirely comfortable sharing with each other as they progress from grade to grade. Go directly to Skool; do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars.Includes: unremarkable sex ed, a dress code, and Zim playing soccer.





	1. Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all three of these little orphaned oneshots at the tender age of eighteen in 2012, and I figured why not transport them over here five years later?
> 
> In all honesty, chapter three is the only reason I wanted to post these here because it was the precursor to another fic I began in 2012 that I actually want to revisit and even continue, which I will also post here as a separate work.

Dib has never spent much time wondering how he would feel about the inevitable sexual education seminar that every child aged eleven and up knew would plague their school one day. If he did wonder how he would feel about it, Dib's best guess would have been along the lines of indifferent or bored or, at the very worst, mildly creeped out by the gym teacher saying the words "penis" and "menstruation" and stuff.

It's mid-December and Dib is eleven years old, fast approaching the end of his first semester of fifth grade. His father is the famed scientist Professor Membrane, and Dib himself has an IQ that's nothing to sneeze at. He's read books and knows how sex works and he stopped being grossed out by the concept a year ago. So when Ms. Bitters flings the classroom door open and directs them to the gymnasium with a sharp finger and says, "It's time for your childhood to be thoroughly obliterated. Go to the gym," Dib knows what's coming and does not expect to be made particularly uncomfortable. The class files down the hallway in a single file line like ants towards the gym.

The bleachers are sticky and smell like Poop Cola was spilled all over them two-thousand years ago and never mopped up, and Dib takes a seat next to Zim on the top bleacher. There's something kind of gross about knowing he's going to be sitting next to his alien mortal enemy the first time Zim learns about sex, but then again, it also promises to be hilarious. After all, even if Zim were human, Dib has a feeling he wouldn't take the revelation about the human body and its post-pubertal functions very well.

"I hope you have your bucket at the ready, Zim," Dib says smugly, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall and then thinking better of it when he feels still-damp wads of gum stick to his coat.

Zim whips his head around to narrow his eyes at him. "Eh?! What are you talking about?"

"You're already stupidly squeamish about germs. Well, this is the sexual education seminar. Germs are going to be the least of your worries when you learn about all the stuff humans get up to when we get older!" Dib cackles, remembering how disgusted he'd been when he was seven and learned where babies came from. It's a pipe dream, but he wouldn't be surprised if Zim just squeals in horror and flees straight back to Irk.

"Your stupid Earth seminars don't frighten me, Dib-slime," Zim sneers, crossing his legs primly and turning his attention to the front of the gym, glaring over the heads of their classmates. "And I have nothing new to learn from this seminar. You think I don't know every trivial, miniscule detail about you humans?! I am an invader! _I AM ZIM!_ "

"Shut up!" the gym teacher screeches from the floor. She stands next to a rolling blackboard with the word SEX scrawled across it. "I want everybody's attention _now!_ "

"Just wait," Dib says sotto voce to Zim, who sits with his spine straight, expression alert as he frowns down at the chalkboard. The coach pulls out a collapsible pointer and smacks the word SEX with the tip.

"The key to having safe sex," she roars to the children, "is to wear a wedding ring! Now get out."

That was anticlimactic. Their classmates stand and shuffle off of the bleachers and towards the gymnasium doors.

"That was _stupid!_ " Zim sneers, standing and marching down the bleachers. Disappointed that he didn't get to see the alien gag at a picture of a placenta or something, Dib scurries after him.

"There's probably going to be a sex ed class when we get to high school, Zim!" Dib says sharply. "And _then_ you'll throw up! Probably like a frog, where you just spit your stomach out and kind of…pick the—the _stuff_ out."

Zim peers at him oddly over his shoulder. "Why would I do that?"

Dib jumps the last few bleachers and lands in front of Zim. He stands his ground, smirking at him. "Because you're going to learn about sex and you're going to be horrified like the alien you are."

Zim frowns. "I know what sex is."

Dib falters. He wasn't expecting that. "You do not!"

Zim's face contorts with rage. " _YOU DARE CALL ZIM A LIAR?_ "

"What is it, then?" Dib snaps. "What is sex, huh? Tell me!"

" _MORONIC BOY!_ " Zim snarls. He balls his fists at his sides, staring down at Dib from the last bleacher. "It's how your species reproduces!"

Dib folds his arms, unconvinced. "Okay. How does it work?"

Dib wishes he'd never asked. With a furious cry of " _It's basic human biology!_ " Zim launches into a loud, detailed, and startlingly accurate rant regarding human sexual reproduction. Dib has never been so upset by the words "vagina" or "orgasm" in his entire life.

"I researched your horrible species within minutes of arriving on this wretched planet, Dib-stink!" Zim concludes sourly. "I know all about your disgusting needs and icky bodily secretions!"

"I'm going to throw up," Dib says reproachfully, feeling the blood drain from his face and a churning in his stomach. He doubles over slightly, and feels a chilling shadow fall over him.

"Zim!" Ms. Bitters barks. "You've made Dib deathly ill. What did you do?"

"Nothing, Ms. Bitters," Zim says, clasping his hands together and staring up at her with wide, revoltingly innocent eyes. "I was just finishing telling the Dib what a period is, because he is very stupid and doesn't know what a girl-human is."

Ms. Bitters's eyes turn to slits and she bends over him with a hiss. "You come from a broken, sordid home, Zim. Take Dib to the nurse."

"Yes sir!" Dib doesn't bother resisting when Zim hooks a hand around his elbow, claws digging into his flesh, and marches him purposefully out of the gym.


	2. Two Nipples Are Better Than None

"I never agreed to this 'dressing out' process!" Zim's voice is shrill and loud in the spacious gymnasium as he stands before the PE coach. In his hands he clutches a small stack of clothes: three white t-shirts and three pairs of red shorts. It is the first day of middle school, and day one of sixth-graderhood would not be complete, Dib supposes, without a patented Irken Temper Tantrum.

"Sorry, kid," the stubbly gym teacher grunts. "You don't wear the uniform, you don't pass the class."

"You dare threaten to fail _me?_ " Zim says, one eye twitching in outrage. "Do you know who I am?!"

"No."

" _I AM ZIM!_ " he screeches indignantly. In a fit of rebellion, he throws his PE uniforms to the ground.

"Yeah, well Zim had better pick his uniforms up and get his ass into the locker room," the coach says dispassionately before walking away. Dib approaches the alien then, as Zim mutters furiously under his breath and stoops to gather his uniforms.

"What's the matter, Zim?" Dib says with sadistic glee. "Afraid to get undressed in front of people? Afraid to show everyone how you have no… _nipples?!_ "

The uniforms tumble out of Zim's arms as he shrieks and claps his hands over his chest like a modest woman surprised in the shower. "Don't talk about my nipples! Wait—"

Dib is unimpressed. "You're an idiot." He kicks at one of Zim's gym shirts, hooking it on the toe of his boot and flinging it up into Zim's waiting hands before turning and going to the locker room.

Their fellow male classmates have already squeezed themselves into the tiny, smelly room and have begun to change. Dib squeezes through the crowd as they point and laugh at each other's fat rolls and ribcages and disturbing birthmarks, and he finally finds an empty locker to shove his things into. He sheds his coat, admittedly somewhat self-conscious seeing as no one has ever seen him without it, and he can hear Zim squealing prissily amidst the mass of sweaty, awkwardly proportioned bodies, and barely spares the Irken a glance when he finally staggers to the free locker next to his own, gasping.

"I hate you all," Zim says with a terrible shudder, trying in vain to dust himself of their classmates' touches. "You're all _disgusting_." He flings the empty locker open and throws his uniforms into its depths with a scowl.

Dib snickers at Zim's misfortune and grasps the hem of his shirt to tug it up and over his head. It snags on his glasses and again on the spike of his hair, and he kicks haphazardly in Zim's direction for roaring with laughter when he runs into his locker door painfully. When he finally disentangles himself from his shirt, he finds himself under Zim's scrutiny.

"Don't watch me undress, you creep," Dib snaps, uncomfortable. He tries not to feel too much like a sissy when covers his bare chest with his shirt. Zim looks away, glancing around the locker room at their peers, trepidation plain on his face.

Dib laughs at him, pulling one of his three white t-shirts on. "You don't wear the uniform, you don't pass the class, Zim!"

Zim rounds on him stupidly, " _THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NIPPLES!_ " He huffs and puffs, his eyes darting this way and that nervously as Dib changes into a pair of red shorts. Dib pulls off his boots and sits on the floor to lace up the dirty, thousand-year-old tennis shoes he'd been given with his PE uniforms.

He jumps, startled, when something heavy and warm falls into his lap and Zim says waspishly, "Hold that, and _don't_ do anything to it!" Dib looks at the object in his lap and sees that it's Zim's PAK. He looks up at Zim, prepared to taunt and make him regret letting his PAK fall into his hands, but Zim is preoccupied with undressing very furiously and very clumsily.

Taking off his clothes is obviously not something Zim does a lot. He grumbles angrily, gnashing his teeth as he yanks off his gloves and boots (he staggers briefly, thrown off balance, and Dib is disappointed when he doesn't fall on his face) and climbs gracelessly out of his pants/leggings/whatever it is he wears under what Dib has ultimately concluded is, in fact, a dress. Despite previously snapping at Zim for staring as _he_ undressed, Dib watches eagerly as Zim pulls on his red shorts and sets about fumbling his way out of his dress, and is not disappointed when he sees Zim's chest bare.

"See?" Dib shouts excitedly, pointing at Zim. He tucks the PAK under his arm and leaps to his feet, staring around at their classmates and jabbing a finger at Zim's chest. "He has no nipples! None! What kind of person has no nipples at all?"

The locker room goes quiet for a moment, until someone pipes up, "So? He has no nipples, I have seven. See?"

Crestfallen, Dib looks back at Zim, who clutches a white shirt and wears an expression of relief at the lack of reaction to his lack of nipples. Dib looks at Zim's stomach, and desperately tries again to convince his peers.

"Look!" he cries, pointing. "Look! No belly button either! How is that possible unless he didn't have an umbilical cord? He's not human!"

"I have seven belly buttons, too."

Dib drops his face into his hands and scowls at Zim, who only gives him a smug smile and grasps Dib's hair spike to quickly stab two holes in the back of his PE shirt before tugging it over his head.

"I hate you," Dib says sourly, holding out the PAK. Zim turns his back on him and the PAK zooms out of Dib's hands and reattaches itself to Zim's spine.

"Thanks, Dib-monkey!" Zim cackles, shoving past him and exiting the locker room.


	3. Your Ass Is Grass

Being a household that was, technically, created through science, Dib's family has never been particularly invested in sports. However, his family has never been the type to loathe sports where others may love it, and so it's not as big of a shock as it could have been when Professor Membrane urges Gaz to try out for the girls' soccer team.

"But I don't want to play soccer," Gaz says flatly, narrowing her eyes (narrowing them further, rather) at the hovering screen their father is broadcasting live from at work.

"You say that now, Gaz, but you've never played it before!" Membrane insists brightly. He softens sympathetically as he goes on, "I know it's not your first choice of recreational activity, honey, but playing a sport at your age has been scientifically proven to reap an enormous number of benefits!"

"Like?" Gaz prompts skeptically.

"Well…" Their father pauses, choosing his words carefully. "Certainly scholarships that you won't need—your college fund as well your brother's has never been an issue—but…playing a sport can be a very good outlet for aggression, and you _are_ a bit aggressive, sweetheart."

Gaz crosses her arms. "So?"

"So would you rather work out all your negative feelings in an active, fun sport, or would you rather see thirteen therapists like Dib once had to?"

"Dad!" Dib complains. "Don't use me as an example!"

"I won't force you into anything you don't want to do," Membrane says, "but I do ask that you at least try. All right?"

Gaz sighs. "Fine."

"Great!" The screen turns to Dib. "Dib, take your sister to the park for try-outs. Be good, kids!" The screen flickers off and floats away. Gaz doesn't bother changing out of her dress when she and Dib set out.

Dib feels like he shouldn't be so startled to see Zim whenever he goes someplace, since Zim is apparently _everywhere_ , but he still jumps slightly and grabs Gaz's sleeve in some half-hearted, barely-formed attempt to protect her when they approach the grassy park field and see Zim meandering down the same sidewalk, coming in their direction with his robot dog on a leash.

"Zim!" Dib cries accusingly as Zim approaches, while Gaz yanks free of Dib's fingers and stalks onto the green where try-outs are starting. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Zim jolts slightly, startled to see him, and blinks slowly at Dib. "What does it _look_ like, Dib-filth? I'm walking GIR." For emphasis, he pulls on GIR's leash, and the disguised little robot, who had tried to follow Gaz, is yanked back to the sidewalk.

Dib raises an eyebrow at the robot. "Do robots need to be walked?"

"GIR has special needs," Zim growls. "By which I mean he wouldn't stop screaming until I took him outside." He glares down at GIR; GIR rolls happily in a puddle. Zim looks back to Dib. "Why are _you_ here, Dib-stink? Babysitting?"

"I'm not staying," Dib sniffs disdainfully. He waves his hand at the girls on the field. "I'm just walking Gaz to try-outs. I don't have time to stick around and watch her traumatize the other girls, and I don't have time to put up with whatever stupid plan you have for today, so don't bother pulling anything evil."

" _Insolent child!_ " Zim snarls. "I do not put my evil plans into motion at your _convenience_ so you can thwart them for your own _stupid amusement!_ "

"So you're not putting one into motion right now?"

"Of course not, I just _said_ I'm walking my robot." As if on cue, the leash goes flying from Zim's hand as GIR takes off sprinting onto the field after a wayward soccer ball. "GIR! Come back to me at _once!_ Leave the ball al _—GIR, GET OFF THAT CHILD'S HEAD! **GIR!**_ "

As Zim hurries onto the grass after GIR, Dib waves to Gaz and turns around to head back home. Zim is harmless for the time being, and Earth is safe for today. Three hours later, Gaz kicks the front door in, absorbed in her Game Slave 2. There isn't a speck of dirt or sweat on her.

"Did you make the team?" Dib asks as Gaz takes her place next to him on the sofa.

She snorts and doesn't look up from her game. "Duh. The first game is on Saturday at ten AM."

"Good job, honey!" Membrane shouts proudly from the kitchen. He marches out to pick Gaz up and put her on his shoulder. "I knew you could do it, my talented daughter! Your brother and I will surely be there to watch your first game!"

It's easy to forget that Gaz is on the soccer team during that week; Gretchen, Zita, Jessica, and a few other younger girls are all on the team as well and go straight to soccer practice at the sound of the final bell, but Gaz merely shoulders her backpack and walks sullenly home with Dib.

Still, Saturday morning comes around and Gaz stands in Dib's doorway, wearing a violet soccer uniform sporting the team name, the Urchins. She growls, "Dad says it's time to go." They pile into the car, Gaz riding shotgun with her head bent over her video game. Dib is convinced she plans to keep playing that stupid thing, even in the middle of her soccer match. And he's right, judging by how she hops out of the car when they park and wanders to join her team, Game Slave 2 still in hand. Dib and his father find a seat in the bleachers.

"You're here to watch Master play too, huh?" Dib yelps, shocked, at GIR's voice next to him. He looks down to his right and sees the stupid little thing wearing its awful dog costume and munching on a hotdog.

"What? Zim—" Dib splutters stupidly and whips his head around wildly, searching for the alien, and he finds him…on the soccer field, with the team. Wearing a uniform and a murderous expression. " _Zim?!_ What is he doing?!"

"I didn't realize your little green friend was a girl," Professor Membrane says curiously.

"He's not! He's—augh!" Dib claws at his face, exasperated, and leaps to his feet. He hurries down the bleacher steps and towards the soccer coach. He yanks on her shirt sleeve for her attention. "Why is _Zim_ on your team?!"

"Well, you should have seen her last weekend during try-outs!" the coach says with a big, cavity-filled smile. "She really wrestled that ball away from her dog!"

"But Zim is a _boy!_ " Dib cries. "And an alien! But—but a boy alien!"

The coach chews on a fingernail, peering at the girls (plus Zim). "Huh, is she?"

"Yes! _He_ is!"

"Well, too late to do anything about it now," the coach shrugs. "The dress just kinda implied, y'know?"

"You don't have to be a girl to wear a—" Dib cuts himself off. It isn't worth it. Instead, he folds his arms and stands there next to the coach, glaring out at the field as the game begins. Gaz still plays her game, even as the whistle sounds, and she doesn't budge an inch from her spot on the green, wholly uninterested in playing. Zim, clearly just as unwilling to play, seems to have deemed Gaz a familiar safety zone and has stationed himself a few feet from her and doesn't move, simply sulking and watching the game begin.

"He's not even playing," Dib points out. "Why did you put him on the team?"

"We were running low on anyone who actually wanted to be on the team," the coach sighs. "Honestly, we'd have put his puppy on the team if there weren't laws against that sort of thing."

Dib watches the whole stupid disaster of a game play out. It's 45 minutes of watching Gretchen get struck in the teeth by flying soccer balls until halftime, when the players can finally retreat to the sidelines for fifteen minutes to nurse their wounds. Gaz opts to stay on the field and sit down in the grass to keep playing her video game while Zim stands a few feet away, scowling off into the distance. Dib approaches him.

"All right, Zim," Dib says, and he means to sound more demanding and no-nonsense but he mostly just sounds exhausted. " _What_ exactly is going on?"

" _HORRIBLE THINGS!_ " Zim shrieks, balling his hands into fists. "If you're here to yell and try to stop some magnificent plan of mine, you might as well forget it, Dib! I don't _want_ to be on this stupid, stinking team. This has only happened because that wretched coach beast is an _imbecile!_ "

"You're breathing my air," Gaz warns them without looking up. "Go do it somewhere else." Zim and Dib take a few steps away.

"I don't like soccer," Zim says, and he looks truly, absolutely pitiful. "How much longer must this torture go on?"

"After halftime? 45 more minutes," Dib answers smugly. Zim looks near insanity (or tears) at this information, but the sound of Gaz's low snarl as her Game Slave dies draws their attention. She stands up, shoving the game into Dib's hands.

"Two minutes," she corrects him darkly, "if that long. Just stay out of my way."

Fifteen minutes pass, and Dib returns to the sidelines as the girls return to the field. The whistle blows, the game starts back up, and Dib watches Gaz walk into the cluster of opposing teams kicking and fighting for the ball.

There are screams. Someone vomits on the grass. Gretchen faints and Zita shrieks as her hair catches on fire. Jessica runs screaming as an explosion goes off in the center of the field, taking out the rest of the players. And Gaz strolls out of the smoke, untouched, dribbling the ball casually down the field, unopposed. She kicks the ball to Zim, who stares at her cluelessly, and she points at the goal just yards behind him. Zim turns to look at it and, uncertain, gives the ball a light tap with the toe of his cleat.

The ball rolls into the net and the crowd in the bleachers roars. Dib drags a hand over his face in exhausted incredulity. The game ends then, with the other girls on both teams being carted off on stretchers and Zim doing a triumphant little jig by the goal.

"Can we leave now?" Gaz asks, coming to stand next to Dib.

"Congratulations, sweetheart!" Professor Membrane says proudly, appearing before them and casting a much-appreciated shadow on his children. "You contributed wonderfully to winning that game!"

"But it was _I— **ZIM!**_ —who scored the winning goal!" Zim says obnoxiously, running to join Dib's family on the sidelines. " _I_ won the game!"

"Good work, Dib's friend!" Membrane says generously. He pats Zim on the head, and Dib wants to retch a bit at how big and shiny Zim's eyes become at the praise. "You and Gaz really know how to be team players!"

He turns to Dib, fishing his wallet from the depths of his lab coat, and hands a few bills to him. "I'm proud of you, son, for coming to support your sister's team on their first big game! I must get back to work— _SCIENCE CALLS_ —but I want you to treat Gaz and your girlfriend to a congratulatory lunch! Wherever you like, I know your sister loves Bloaty's!"

Dib boggles at his father's word choice while Zim cringes in horror at the mention of Bloaty's. ("Daaa _aaad!_ He's not my girlfriend, he's an alien! I don't wanna take them to Bloaty's!") ("Uh, really, I'm sort of… _allergic_ to… _FILTH!_ Thank you—")

Gaz fists her hands in Dib's collar and drags him down to her level. Her nose stabs his face painfully as she glares deep into his soul.

"Dib," she hisses malevolently, "I am on a soccer team that I have no interest in being a part of, and my Game Slave is dead. We're going to Bloaty's. I don't care if Zim comes along— _you are taking me to Bloaty's, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?_ "

"I insist!" Professor Membrane agrees enthusiastically, corralling his children and Zim together and herding them into the car. "Hurry up, kids, science waits for no man!"

He drops them off outside of Bloaty's Pizza Hog with a wave before taking off with a screech of tires on asphalt. Gaz takes the money their father had given to Dib and marches inside without him. Zim frowns after Professor Membrane's car, mildly confused.

"What just happened?" he asks blankly.

"My dad _likes_ you is what just happened," Dib snaps. He turns on his heel and follows Gaz into the restaurant, snagging Zim by the sleeve of his soccer jersey and dragging him along with a sigh of defeat. "Come on."


End file.
